The Complete Enneagram: 27 Paths to Greater Self-Knowledge

by Beatrice Chestnut

In order to change behavior to achieve personal growth, we must develop one capacity: We must develop the ability to create the mental and emotional space inside ourselves to observe and understand what we are doing and think about why we do it.

One of our deepest unconscious patterns is the false belief that we already know ourselves well enough to understand why we think, feel, and act the way we do. I will argue that, in fact, we don’t; and that thinking we do know who we are is part of the problem.

It is impossible to be aware of everything that is going on all the time and advantageous to learn ways of thinking and acting that help minimize pain and danger, or increase feelings of comfort and safety. But while it may be good for our survival and our comfort to avoid an awareness of our own pain and fear—especially early on in life—if we don’t examine the ways we do this as we get older, we fall asleep to who we are and all that we might be.

Over time, early and necessary (and sometimes life-saving) defensive maneuvers and coping strategies evolve into “patterns” of thinking, feeling, and behaving. These patterns come to operate like “organizing principles,” or beliefs about how the world works and how we must act in order to survive or thrive. These patterned coping strategies turn into invisible and automatic “habits” that influence where your attention goes and what adaptive strategies you employ to interact in the world.

This misalignment between our ingrained habits and our yearning to live authentically and spontaneously becomes a source for all kinds of suffering, dissatisfaction, and unhappiness. The early coping strategies we don’t need anymore become unseen prisons that constrain how we think, feel, and act in ways that feel so familiar and integral that we forget we have the capacity to choose other options.

The practice of self-observation consists of putting your attention on your thoughts, feelings, and actions in the present moment and bringing your focus back over and over again from wherever it inevitably wanders.

Beginning to understand your own personality type allows you to better notice your personality patterns as they are happening—to “catch yourself in the act” more often—and release yourself from being trapped by choosing not to remain unconscious to those patterns.

While many different authors have now published excellent books on the Enneagram, this book focuses mainly on Naranjo’s descriptions of the types, the subtypes, and the nature of the path of conscious development and the work it entails.

The Shadow represents everything we refuse to acknowledge about ourselves that nonetheless impacts the way we behave.

Our human (egoic) tendency is to want to feel good (and to avoid feeling bad) about ourselves. But without a way of recognizing, accepting, and addressing all of who we are, including the Shadow side and difficult parts of our experience, our personal growth stops and we remain asleep to our potential.

The “body” center includes the “motor” center (Points 8, 9, and 1), which takes an active part in all physical movement, and the “instinctive center,” which corresponds to our instinctual functions. When thought initiates movements within you, your motor center is activated. An impulse from the motor, or gut, center can be a solid guide to right action, but misuse of the motor center can also lead to impulsive behavior or inertia.

The “heart” center or “emotional” center (Points 2, 3, and 4) regulates the feeling function: the experience and expression of emotions. It allows you to feel your emotions and connect to others through empathy; but overuse (or misuse) can lead to oversensitivity, insensitivity, or emotional manipulation.

The “head” center or “intellectual” center (Points 5, 6, and 7) regulates the thinking function: the experience and expression of thoughts, beliefs, and other cognitive activity. While essential for dispassionate analysis and reasoning, this form of intelligenc...

Each type has a habitual “focus of attention”—its most prominent patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving—as well as a central motivating “passion” or “chief feature.”

The passions are emotional (and often unconscious) drivers based on an implicit view about what you need to survive and how you can get it. Because the passions are motivated by a sense of lack, they create a basic dilemma or trap around which the personality is organized while striving to meet a basic need that never gets fulfilled.

Social Nine: “Participation” (countertype)

Sexual One: “Zeal” (countertype)

Sexual Six: “Strength/Beauty” (countertype)

Sexual Seven: “Suggestibility”